What Makes the World Go Around?
by Dibsthe1
Summary: A few selected characters ponder the question of what makes the world go around. DIB! COMPLETE!
1. ZI II IIIM!

I am Jhonen Vasquez and I created Invader Zim. Last night I was Napoleon and I invaded Russia.

To those who do follow my stuff, I would like to apologize taking so long to post anything new. I hope putting up two fics will help make up for the wait.

This one consists of a few drabbles. I don't promise they'll all be funny, but they will be a good deal lighter than my usual stuff to keep us from overdosing on all the angst. You'll know I'm finished when we get to Dib.

**Chapter One: Zim**

Standing in the men's room doorway of his base, Zim looked up at the sky, as he had so often seen the Dib human doing. Whatever the Dib kept seeing up there, ZIM must see it too! The Dib must not greedily pig the sky all to his greedy hog self!

All Irkens had been programmed to know that Irk was at the very center of the universe, that the entire universe revolved around Irk. As a smeet, Zim would stare in wonder at all the ships of the mighty Irken armada, from the light, deft Spittle Runners all the way up to the huge Viral Tanks, watching them embark on thrilling voyages of discovery to besiege and raid the entire universe!

While waiting for these ships to return, splattered with blood and laden with slaves, Zim would watch each worthless little planet follow its aimless little orbit around each insignificant little star and dream of the day he would singlehandedly conquer every single last one of these pathetic little planets as the rest of the Irken fleet stayed home, put up its boots and took a breather. All these inferior races would then bow at the feet of ZI-II-IIIM!

Scanning the vast expanse of the sky, Zim frowned. Curse the inferior boring sky of this inferior stupid planet! Completely lacking the Irken Armada and the Massive itself looming far above them all, it inspired no such glorious visions of interplanetary conquest Zim enjoyed while on Irk, the glorious home planet of ZI-II-IIIM!

The only image the sky of this pitiful planet offered to Zim was the smirking, sneering face of that insolent rebellious dirt monkey Dib... DIB... the only thing remaining between Zim and the total and complete annihilation of these insignificant earthlings and the worship and honor that was so rightfully HIS!

Zim turned until he was facing Irk's quadrant, supremely confident that his planet was constantly and obsessively monitoring his every move. Amazing though he was already, once he finally brought this filthy planet to its knees everybody on Irk would positively faint with awe at the wonder and glory that was ZI-II-IIIM!

Zim compared the star patterns to what he had noticed the previous night, and the night before that, and the night before that. Something was wrong and it could not possibly be Zim! Zim was never wrong... the universe must be wrong! The other insignificant stars and their worthless little planets were, in fact, _not_ following the paths which they would be if they were revolving around Irk, as Zim had so long known they did! Tilting his head, Zim squashed an eye in puzzlement as he considered this.

Even here, on this filthy worthless ball of DIRRRT so far from Irk, the stars and planets continued in the same orbits Zim was accustomed to seeing; they all still followed all the very same curved paths they had followed on Zim's home planet...

Well of course!

No matter where Zim was, the universe continued to revolve around him... for was he not ZIM? Zim made the world, nay, the universe, go around!


	2. Gir

I am Jhonen Vasquez and I created Invader Zim. I'm also a red the newspaper and now I'm going to heads and the hair on one of them is on firAAAAAAAAAAAH...!

**Chapter Two: Gir **

Gir happily poured candy after candy into his mouth. Gulp, good, more! Gulp, good, more! Gulp, good... GONE?

Gir screamed uncontrollably! Where did all the candies go? This whole big bag was full of them just a second ago! Gir shook the bag, but it stayed empty.

The little robot looked down at the floor, eyes squeezing smaller, mouth quivering. IT WASN'T FAIR!

Dejected, Gir flung the bag on the floor and turned around to throw himself over one of the pillows on the couch, preparing for a good cry.

But turning to face the pillow, the robot noticed the remote lying next to it. Sometimes you could click the remote enough times to make a really good show come on!

This time the Music Video Show came on! This show was almost as good as the Scary Monkey Show, even maybe a tiny bit better sometimes, but only when some really, REALLY good music came on. The best thing of all about the Music Video Show was, it was never over!

Then the best music in the entire world came on! It was so good that Gir had to get up and dance! Oh how Gir loved this music! "DOOM! doomy doomy..." You could sing the doom song to any music, any where, any time. That was the best thing of all about the doom song. "Doom doom doom doomy doomy doom doom... " Dancing around the room, Gir sang the doom song at the top of his obsolete little sound card.

And then the best music in the entire world was over... but only so the best music in the entire universe could come on and this music was so fast the little robot had to start running around whenever this music came on and as the music got faster and faster Gir ran faster and faster and the room spun around and around and around and all of a sudden Gir slipped on the empty plastic candy bag and fell down and rolled over a couple of times and ended up looking up at the ceiling laughing and laughing and laughing at the walls and the ceiling and the couch and the TV spinning around and around as Gir laughed and laughed and laughed watching the music make the whole world go 'round and 'round and 'round and round and round and 'round androundandroundanrounanrouanr...


	3. Professor Membrane

I am Jhonen Vasquez and I created Invader Zim. Tomorrow I will be Albert Einstein, unless something else comes up at the last minute.

**Chapter Three: Membrane**

Professor Membrane squinted into the telescope, searching the skies for the comet.

If only his son, his poor insane son, was here to watch this with him, instead of being off... off doing whatever it was on which he wasted his valuable time instead of Real Science.

His sane daughter might never lift her face from that screen... thing, but at least she didn't constantly crave illusions of things that didn't even exist! His poor, insane son, on the other hand, seemed to actually believe some kind of aliens were out there somewhere... but the Professor would require a lot more proof than, "Aliens do exist, Dad! You just haven't seen any!" How could intelligent life exist anywhere else in the universe... when the universe was all just waiting for explorers _from_ the earth?

As Membrane well knew, first Voyager 2 and then the Hubble telescope had relayed back to earth wondrous and bizarre images, sights that not only had no human being previously seen, but sights that no human being could have ever imagined. Ice volcanoes on the moons of Neptune... fiery stars enveloped by storms of hailstones... towers of gas dwarfing the earth's entire solar system and which constantly gave birth to new stars the light of which was only now reaching the earth from a time before the human race even existed... nebulae whose light formed rectangular patterns... things that even Membrane himself couldn't explain... yet.

And no aliens. None anywhere. Nothing resembling any form of intelligent life. Of course not. What a ridiculous idea. And they certainly weren't getting ready to take over the earth!

Membrane checked the charts once more and put his eye back to the telescope. This time he located it, right where the chart had told him it would be. Exactly as science had predicted.

Having completed his examinations, the Professor calmly put away his telescope. The vastness of space ensured that it was statistically highly improbable that a comet would ever collide with a planet; this one certainly wasn't about to do so, least of all with the earth. True, a comet had come much too close for comfort in 1994, crashing into this very own solar system's Jupiter, and

recalling this event reminded the Professor of something else which used to terrify him to even consider.

In a universe vast and immense beyond imagining; the earth, tinier than a grain of sand in comparison, traced a frail ellipse around its sun, at a speed of over 60,000 miles per hour. What kept this planet from being flung from this thin path at any given point in time, to be hurled far into the frigid depths of the furthest reaches of the universe?

Now, add to this the equally terrifying fact that the earth was itself spinning, at over a thousand miles per hour at the equator. So why was everything on it, including himself, not flicked from its surface at any given instant in time... like right NOW? This thought kept the five year old Membrane awake for many a night after watching that National Geographic special.

Finally, one memorable day, he grasped what a childish worry this had been. If this hadn't happened already, it was hardly going to happen in the next five minutes! The same force that kept all the planets spinning around their respective suns for lo these many uncountable eons wasn't about to stop doing the same for the earth! The force to thank was gravity, good old gravity!

When he tripped and fell, even when he skinned his knee, that was really gravity lovingly pulling him back to the earth, protecting him from being flicked away into space. Well, gravity and Newton's First Law of Thermodynamics, which says that a body in motion (the earth) tends to remain in motion (around the sun). Once the young Membrane had grasped these two concepts, the worst terror of his childhood vanished forever; science reached out to offer him a warm feeling of safety and security.

So great was his relief that he even forgot that it was a TV special ON science that had so terrified him in the first place.

Membrane could chuckle about it now, realizing just how ridiculous this childish fear of his had been. He hoped that it wouldn't be long before his poor insane son would have a similar revelation about his paranormal junk.

Ever since that wonderful moment when he first understood the scientific principle that kept the earth from spinning off in the furthest reaches of the universe, far from the life-giving sun, to freeze in the universe's frigid depths, to a cold beyond ICE, a cold even below HUMAN IMAGINING! Membrane knew that he would dedicate his life to science.

Life not only became less fearful, it really began to open up for Membrane the moment he realized one simple thing.

Gravity and inertia made the world go around.


	4. Ms Bitters

I am Jhonen Vasquez and I created Invader Zim. I am also Pythagoras and I created the Pythagorean theorem.

**Chapter Four: Ms. Bitters**

I'm happy to tell you, class, recess is over. I kept telling you it would be and now it is.

Now look up here, you doomed children. Look up I said. If you don't all look up right now you are all doomed to eternal detention...

That's better.

_Doom it. I wanted to give the whole class detention and set a new record._

Pay attention... not that it matters much because you're all doomed to just be entry level MacMeaties telephone sales clerks anyway...

Open your Geometry books to the same doomed thing we did yesterday. You are doomed to review it for the rest of the skool year.

Now Pythagoras' Doomed Theorem is doomed to claim that the doomed sum of the doomed areas of two small and equally doomed squares equals the doomed area of the large doomed one. In doomed algebraic terms, A squared plus B squared is doomed to always equal C squared. C is doomed to always be the doomed hypotenuse and A and B are the equally doomed sides of this whole doomed triangle. This doomed theorem is doomed to be of fundamental importance in the Euclidean Geometry where it is doomed to serves as a doomed basis for the doomed definition of doomed distance between two doomed points. It is doomed to be so basic that any doomed one who took doomed geometry classes in doomed hi skool is DOOMED to remember it long after other doomed math principles are doomed to have been doomed and forgotten.

Any questions? No questions?

GOOD.

Doom, if we take this doom problem, and doom doom the doom doom doom, we doom doom...

Zim! Stop throwing sharp pointy things at Dib. If you continue to disrupt the rest of the class, you will be doomed to be even more doomed than you already are. And Dib, you stop throwing dirty looks at Zim! He can't help it if he is doomed to have a skin condition.

... doom doom, doom doom doom. Doom! Doom, you are doomed to do that problem at the board. Even if you ARE doomed to get it wrong.

WRONG. I knew it. You're doomed. And YOU'RE doomed, and you're doomed, and you're also doomed, and YOU'RE especially doomed, and you're likewise doomed, and you're doomed too, and...

... and you're doomed as well, Dib. Here's what you are all doomed to...

You are doomed to do the Calculus Exercises on pages 100 to 106, inclusive. And by "inclusive," that means it includes both sides of the paper, so you are also doomed to do pages 99 and 107 as well. And read Chapters 10 through 20 of World Geography: An Outside Perspective. You are doomed to be tested on these chapters tomorrow. Those of you who aren't doomed to get run over on the way home, that is.

Class! Stop packing your books. It isn't three o'clock yet.

The universe is just doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed... doomed. NOW it's three o'clock. Get out of here.

DOOM makes the world go around.

_(A/N) This took at the most an hour. Very unusual for me._


	5. Gaz

I am Jhonen Vasquez and I created Invader Zim. I am also the Countess Elizabeth Bathory. The greatest pleasure of all is to torture a child to death. Taking baths in the blood of my victims will preserve my own youth and beauty. People admire me and consider me their hero for torturing and murdering children, because that means I kick ass with so much style.

**Chapter Five: Gaz**

With vampire piggies closing in all around her, Gaz savagely punched buttons until only one piggy remained. Finding itself alone, it beat a strategic retreat down a corridor.

Smirking smugly, Gaz sent her avatar after it. This time, she was going to get them all... every last one.

But with a final thundering explosion, horrifying in its suddenness, the screen turned red and the most unwelcome words in the language appeared before her eyes, "Game Over."

No... NO... NNNOOOOOO!

Gaz hadn't gotten this vampire piggy after all. It got her. No way existed for Gaz to lose a game without rupturing every last blood vessel in the room, but a sneak attack was her least favorite way of all.

A raging inferno leaped before Gaz's eyes, broken bleeding bodies of the eternally damned writhing in agony before her. She leaped to her feet on the seat of the couch, screaming and screeching and thrashing her arms and kicking, working herself up to a frenzied tantrum that would get any child over the age of two sent to its room until it was ready to start acting its age. Gaz prepared to fling her GameSlave at the wall as hard as she could, remembering only at the last second that this wouldn't be the wisest move.

Frustrated in her urges to resort to her favorite method of dealing with any and all setbacks - utterly unbridled violence - Gaz first gritted her teeth like a grizzled old rat caught in a box trap, then threw back her head and shrieked until the very window panes vibrated.

This was the only time she wished Dib was around. Well, she needed SOMEONE to accuse of distracting her! Dib offered a nice convenient target at which to vent her rage, a good safe target that wouldn't do anything unfair as hitting her back!

But nobody was nearby, frustrating Gaz more than ever. The nerve of Dib. Some brother he was. He was supposed to be always there for her, ever ready to do all the stuff she didn't feel like doing! He was a great big eleven years old, but she was only a little girl of ten, still just a baby! If she felt like beating the spit out of him, then it was his brotherly duty to let her! What kind of a selfish excuse of a brother was he anyway, not being around at the one time she needed him?

Gaz grabbed a cushion and tore it to shreds with her teeth. In being such a coward and hiding like that, he wasn't letting her express her anger! She had to keep it all inside and that wasn't fair! By the time she was finished with the cushion, the living room looked like the aftermath of an indoor blizzard.

Gaz unleashed one final scream of furiously outraged dissatisfaction. Now she'd have to start all over again. She supposed worse things had happened to her over the course of her life than having to start another game, but she couldn't think of any right now.

And as soon as she had once more gotten THIS game going, she knew, oh she just knew Dib spied on her eagerly awaiting the very moment when he could cause the most disruption possible. THAT was the very second he would come along, and ... oh the outrage, the violation... he... would... TALK. And deliberately choose the very moment to do the one thing he knew would make her lose her game. Hours beforehand, she knew it, oh, she just knew it.

As Gaz thought about the moment when she would see Dib again, her hands began to shake. A couple of times, just his walking into the room had been enough to make her lose her game. Deliberately, as always.

Just thinking about how Dib would knowingly and intentionally make her lose her game, because he selfishly insisted on being beaten up only at the times he HIMSELF chose, Gaz could feel her anger building all over again. From some remote location Dib had deliberately made her angry... and she had no way of making him pay!

She slammed her fist down on the Start New Game button with renewed fury. This time she would get those vampire piggies, every single last one of them... the vampire piggies that had so treacherously cost her that last game. They would pay...

Burning with self-righteous indignation, Gaz set her face grimly and threw herself into this fresh game with a new intensity.

Revenge made the world go around.

_(A/N) I didn't write Dib into this scene because the result would not only be not funny itself, it would be SO unfunny that it would make all previous four chapters not funny either. _


	6. Dib

I am Jhonen Vasquez and I created Invader Zim... BUT NOBODY BELIEVES ME!

Longest chapter of all, also much angst in with the humor... but you expected that, right?

**Chapter Five: Dib**

Come on... come on... come on end the auction! End the auction already! I My bid's in, just three minutes left, the auction's as good as over so END THE AUCTION!

Refresh... REFREEESH! Ahh... still the highest bidder... Now ENDTHEAUCTION!

Man I've GOTTA win those alien sleep cuffs... nobody else had better bid unless they WANT to be alien fodder!

BBB. Huh. What it REALLY stands for is Benighted Bumbling Blunderers! What else did they get outlawed just because they don't believe it works?

They just don't realize... NOBODY REALIZES... the danger we're in!

I hear him talking... all the time... about... about invasions and slaves and serving a superior race... Are they all deaf? Or are they all just stupid? Or do they WANT to surrender their free will and serve a giant all-conquering invading colossus?

If anybody who really COULD do something realized how much danger we're all in, why... HE'D fall over himself to move mountains! And the only one who does know is me... so how can I possibly do any less?

I'm glad I know what's going on so I can do something about it, and yet so many other times... so very... many... many other times... I wish he'd chosen some other skool, some other town, some other PLANET! Sure, I always knew I'd see an alien some day, but I didn't realize everybody else was THIS blind!

It's all up to me... and I just get so tired sometimes... so sick... and tired... of it all. It's like I'm Atlas... I'm just like Atlas... the fate of the entire world lies on MY shoulders... but nobody offers to hold it for even one second so I can fold my trench coat up over my shoulders so it'll be just a little... tiny... bit easier... to carry it!

Sigh.

It's all up to me... all... up... to me.

They say the doors of history can sometimes turn on some very small hinges... and I may be just one person, but I don't want the world to be destroyed. Not if as long as I have anything to say about it.

This world is just too wonderful to hand over without a fight.

Refresh... Two minutes. Two minutes to go.

We've got so much here... so many, MANY, wonderful things...

Like the way the clouds shine when the rain is over and the sun is coming out... for those few seconds the clouds shine just like the sun itself!

That first taste of Chinese food when I've had to go a couple of days without it because the only thing around is pizza!

When I start up my favorite album on a Friday evening when the weekend's just starting, ohhh MAN, no matter how rotten the week was, that first riff ALWAYS makes me glad I'm alive just to hear it!

Watching my favorite movies when I need cheering up... I've been needing 'em a whole lot more lately... I'm so glad they made 'em!

The way the robins sound first thing in the morning when I'm the only one awake, I mean, not even any video game noises or ANYTHING...

My favorite little corner of the park where nobody can see me from the road and I can just relax away from everybody with enough trees and bushes to hide me no matter what season it is...

That feeling, oh that wonderful wonderful FEELING, when I've managed to not get beaten up at skool and made it all the way to my own room after not one bad thing's happened to me all day and when I lock the door behind me it means nothing else will either; of course that doesn't happen often but that makes it... all the sweeter... when... it... does...

Wait... a... second...

Hm.

I just... realized... I like people I've never met a LOT more than I like the people I HAVE met...

I... I - I love the human race... yes, really, I do... but, well... I just don't like PEOPLE most of the time.

Always calling me "crazy"... always telling me to go to the Crazy House for Boys and not come out... shoving me into lockers... whispering... snickering... pushing me around beating me up tripping me and THEN pointing and laughing and NO! No. I'm not at skool now. Tomorrow morning will be time enough to go through all that again.

So then... just _why_ am I trying this hard? I... I don't know... I never ask I just DO it! Oh no... Not only did I just bid an entire month's allowance on these things... but I'm sitting around watching an online auction like I have nothing else to do! SOMEBODY ELSE BID PLEASE! I CHANGED MY MIND! BID BID BID!

One minute. Refresh. Still top bidder... Refresh. Still... Refresh... Come on somebody please, I don't want them any more!

Why DO I do all this? The only people who don't treat me like dirt avoid me entirely. Or they both treat me like dirt AND avoid me as much as possible...

Fifty-five seconds fifty - four seconds fifty- three seconds fifty - two seconds fifty - one seconds...

Whew... eyes...

Hey, the girl across the street is going out again. He always opens the door for her. I guess she must like him doing that. I bet they'll get married.

Me... someday... maybe... Refresh.

They say love makes the world go around. Everybody has someone who loves them.

Everybody but me.

I know she sure did. I think Dad does, but I'm not sure sometimes. HER? Tchehhhh yehRIGHT.

Do I love Dad? I'd also love it if he was home more. Her... Hmmmmmm... hmm...

The Inuit language has 150 words for snow... and Japanese has quite a few words for love. I sure know English could use some more. One word for when the other person lets you feel it... treats you half decently... and another word for when you're trapped with the person you'd LOVE to get away from once in a while and everybody keeps telling you that you LOVE them and they actually seem to even half believe it themselves...

Well I DO NOT love getting threatened and hit, I know that much... and that's about all -

Thirty seconds. Refresh.

Hey, Darkbootie's been a pretty good friend! The Eyeballs don't usually even talk to anybody my age, let alone let them join, but he actually looked at my evidence and offered to sponsor me in as a Junior Member. He's almost like a dad I don't have to make an appointment to talk to. Only trouble is, he works in a restricted area so I've seen him in person only once, and even that was by sheer chance. We can't visit; I don't even know where he lives... none of us can give our home addresses to any other member. Our video conferences will have to do... and if it's an emergency, like when Zim nearly ran over the earth with Mars, well then, I'll just have to sneak into NASAPLACE. Again.

Good old Darkbootie.

Fifteen. Refresh.

Everybody has someone they love or consider a friend, and everybody has someone who loves, or at the very least, likes them. Every single person who gets killed or is taken a slave in this coming alien invasion will have been somebody else's best friend, or girlfriend or boyfriend or parent or child or something. That is more than enough reason for doing all that I do.

And as long as the earth is safe, then just maybe, out of all the people on it, maybe one day I just might find one person who I know loves me. That's enough. That's all I ask. One.

Three. Refresh.

Maybe someday I WILL know once more what love feels like. Love. The love that makes the world go around.

All I have to do to find love is save the world.

Re... fresh... EEE - YES! I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON! The auction's FINALLY over and I WON! Those cuffs are MINE! Heh heh heh heh heh... sleep well tonight, Zim, but your days of freedom are numbered! Now to -

Waitaminute... the price went UP at the last second! Somebody tried to SNIPE me! Good thing I bid more!

Maybe love does make the world go around, but money sure helps it to turn!

THE END


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